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Monday, October 23, 2006

What is your biggest/worst foodie nightmare?

Warning: The following post contains no foodie adventure and if you're in the middle of eating lunch, I suggest you come back later.

I can think of a few things like hideously burnt cookies, extremely dried, overcooked cake or a souffle that flopped when it came out of the oven. The first two has happened to me, the souffle hasn't, because I haven't worked up the courage to venture into that arena yet. Every time I think of souffle I have this vision the flopped souffle that Lucy Liu's character Alex in Charlie's Angel made. You know the scene, where she survived getting pelted by millions of bullets in her boy friend (Matt Le Blanc's character .. whatever his name is) trailer by hiding/holding herself up against the roof of the trailer. When the bad guys left, she was safe and sound and ecstatic because her freshly baked souffle survived... only to see it flop before her eyes.

I think my worst/biggest foodie nightmare happened yesterday and nope, it ain't the souffle. I caught the worse case of gastro I've ever had. I know my own body and I've had mild cases of gastro before but you know it's bad when any whiff of cooked food makes you want to regurgitate.

The story went like this.. We were helping a friend of Alv's brother move houses on the weekend. His brother was suppose to meet us at the new place and we thought that we would all go out to lunch after the inspection and all that was done. A big misunderstanding there, because they (J, D and Lil B) had already had lunch and didn't arrive until 2pm. During that time, I had gone down to the nearest liquor store and bought a pack of Kettle's Bacon and Sour Cream chips which would be the death of me. Ok, I exaggerated a bit there. But it sounded good, 'the death of me' as oppose to 'my down fall'.

Clearly those chips and my stomach didn't go well together because no sooner than I had finished the chips did I felt sick. Think woozy, need to lie down kind of sick. I didn't think much of it at the time, just shrugged it off as low blood sugar thing, although I did complained loudly that I was going to die if they didn't feed me soon. It was about 3pm when I finally got fed; poached eggs, with smoked salmon and mushrooms on english muffins slathered with a mountain of hollandaise sauce. Somehow, I still managed to eat that, walked the South Melbourne markets, duck into Chef's hat and Made in Japan store and warehouse before we headed home. (It's amazing how the 'shopping' mode takes over and overwhelms the sick mode)

Snoozed all the way back to Alv's and snoozed for 2 hrs after we got home, still felt sick but still didn't think much of it until I got to mum's and had to park myself on the couch. Had no appetite. Poor mum. It was meant to be her birthday dinner and she cooked all these food (my favourite food tooo!) and I couldn't eat a single thing. Ended up having a few spoons of rice and stir fried asparagus.

When I got home it really hit me. Opened the front door and the smell of food overwhelmed my senses to the point that I nearly turned around and headed straight for the garden. My housemate'd had a dinner guest and had cooked lamb cutlets with mashed sweet potatoes or something. (Shell: IF you are reading this, what did you marinade those lamb cutlets with??) I don't know what it was but it sure did it. I love lamb, but obviously yesterday was not the day. In and out of the shower and straight to bed, I did not utter a single word when I got home beyond, "hey.. feeling sick and what..?"

Whilst I was lying in bed it got me thinking.. this has got to be the worse thing that could ever happen to someone who loves food like me. If you think about it, burnt cookies or overcooked cake can be rectified by just making another batch. Heck, if you didn't have time to make another batch, you could just go out and and buy some good biscuits to substitute the failed ones. A souffle that sinked could be rectified by just making another one or if all else fails, just go to your favourite restaurant that makes a mean souffle and order it there to satisfy the craving. Even if you served sinked souffle (your foodie pride might get dented here), everyone's just going to have a laugh and still say it's still good.

But imagine not being able to smell food. Our sense of taste and smell must be two of the most important things to a foodie. Just because it looks good, doesn't mean it tastes good? Just because it smells good, doesn't mean it will taste good? Of course, if it looks good, then it must taste good too right?? I guess here lies the conundrum of visual taste vs real taste.

Anyway, I'm rambling.. If there is one plus of not being able to smell food without upheaving, it is being able to think about food without the urge to upheave. The funniest thing for me about this whole gastro thing is that I can still think about food without the urge to chuck. Can't smell it.. heavens no.. but I can still think about it. LOL I caught myself thinking about food last night, about what ingredients I have left in the pantry and what I could make for SHF24. LOL

LOL! There seriously is nothing worse than a serious bout of gastro and I know as I have had about 3 bouts in the past 4 years - two of them as I was boarding an aeroplane!! There is nothing more hunbling than having to throw up in a paper bag in full view of 400 people as the plane is still speeding down the runway and the seatbelt lights are on :o)

But glad to hear you have your priorities straight and are thinking of SHF even in your hour of need!! ;-)

Ellie: I totally agree with you. My boss (who is a great cook) keeps telling me it's easy and the trick is not to overbeat the egg whites etc but I just don't trust myself in that respect. But one day.. one day I will conquer it! :)

I feel much better today thank you. Have been on a steady staple of bread and gatorade. LOL

Jeanne: Oh no, that's terrible having getting gastro whilst boarding a flight. What a great way though to attract some handsome flight attendant to attend to your needs :D